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Originally Posted by loquitur
Which leads me to ask Will how he knows the Palis elected Hamas out of desperation.
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Palestinian media, mainly. You'd be surprised how much information is coming out of Gaza and the West Bank from independent journalists.
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Originally Posted by loquitur
It's not like radical Islamism is exactly unknown in the muslim world the past decade. It's not a fringe phenomenon.
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I'm well aware and even posted that there are radical elements within Palestine. My point was simply that the level of radicalism is directly proportional to the suffering of the common Palestinian and that your average Palestinian, if given the choice, would prefer peace.
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Originally Posted by loquitur
Probably not a majority or plurality one, but not fringe by any means. You are assigning motives by projection or inference, which I do understand, but that comes back to assuming that others think the way you do. They don't. Different cultures, different background, different assumptions. In the end you have to evaluate people based on their own words and actions.
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Aren't we both assigning intent? You seem to be suggesting that based on the evidence the motive is victory, whereas I believe, probably looking at a lot of the same evidence, that their goal is peace but that goal is colored by the fact that there is so much suffering. A fight for independence can turn into a fight to destroy when the insurgents are desperate enough. Remove the desperation, and, well you get the point.
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Originally Posted by loquitur
I have been having some real difficulty here understanding how nice, educated, enlightened people can possibly think it's ok for the self-proclaimed genocidal murderers of Hamas to lob rockets at civilians and hide behind their own children as human shields -- but be outraged when Israel takes steps to stop it.
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Hamas is a democratically elected violent extremist organization. It's not as simple as "Bad hamas! Bad!" Actually, it's not as simple as "Bad Israel! Bad!" either. I can't think of a time in my lifetime when a rocket attack has occurred that I agreed with. Palestinian militants are absolutely, positively wrong to fire missiles into Israel. No question. The Israeli government is absolutely, positively wrong to not take more effective steps to reduce collateral damage and they're absolutely, positively wrong to respond so asymmetrically. Why is it that when one is equally outraged at both Palestine and Israel, they are anti-Israel and pro-Palestine?
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Originally Posted by loquitur
Or if you don't think it's ok, you are silent about it when the rockets are being lobbed but vocal when Israel finally says "enough." As I said before, my family has managed to survive one genocide in the last century, and I don't want it to have to survive another one in this century, which is what is going to happen if Hamas isn't stopped.
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That's not what happened this time. Israel broke the cease fire on actionable intelligence in order to kill high priority targets and Palestine responded. But that's not important. Both sides have "started it" time and again. We should be concentrating on how to prevent the next "who started it" game.
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Originally Posted by loquitur
And the Palis will be better off when Hamas is overthrown too. Or did you just gloss over the murders and leg-breaking that Hamas has been doing over the last couple of weeks to intimidate its own population? I guess that doesn't count, it's just Arabs killing and maiming other Arabs. The best thing that can happen to the Palestinians is to have the back of the Hamas monster broken for good. If, as I hope, the people here on this site are right, and the Palestinians really do want nothing more than peace, that will be their chance.
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Again, I don't see anyone here with an I (heart) Hamas t-shirt on. I can't wait until Hamas is one. I also can't wait until Israel is no longer dropping 1 ton bombs that level three city blocks in a populated refugee camp just to get one man. Why ignore that half of the equation, Loq? You've certainly been clear about me ignoring Hamas, what about Israel? Surly you see that Israel is not an innocent victim. Please tell me you're not one of these people that thinks Israel can do no harm.